COCHRANE— Hoping to get students into new classrooms while stimulating the local economy, the provincial government announced it will be moving forward with a new K-9 Catholic school.
Calgary Catholic School District chair Mary Martin said the school will break ground in September and is expected to be completed and ready for students by September 2022.
“We’ve certainly seen a lot of growth in Cochrane,” Martin said. “It’s really time for Calgary Catholic to have a new facility and one that is going to serve us into the future.”
The new school will be built at 150 Fireside Parkway. It is one of five planned schools the province has dedicated $100 million to building.
Martin said the school will be home to around 600 students.
“We’re just really pleased to get it and pleased to have the promise of accelerated funding to support an accelerated opening,” Martin said. “We look forward to serving the families of Cochrane.”
A variety of factors go into deciding the size of a Calgary Catholic school, Martin said, including speaking with the community to understand their needs and working within the limits of natural and artificial barriers.
“That will help us carve out the most appropriate attendance group for a particular school,” Martin said. “It’s always predicated on community consultation and what we think is best for kids.”
Each Calgary Catholic school is a unique build, Martin said and is built to compliment the community it sits in.
Designs also work to make “architecturally interesting” buildings, including add-ons that celebrate Catholicism.
“If you look at any of our schools you’ll find very subtle signs of faith— it could be the way the tiles are placed to create a cross, things that would identify us as a faith-based school will be visible if you’re looking for them,” Martin said.
The district's current building the Holy Spirit School has been leased from Rocky View Schools and will soon come to an end, Martin said. This made it imperative for Calgary Catholic to begin construction on a new facility for students.
The Cochrane area is growing exponentially, Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Pete Guthrie said, and a new school has been needed to match the population increase.
“We’re in desperate need of expanding our schools,” Guthrie said. “It’s been top of mind.”
The construction of the school will be an important project for the Cochrane community, he said, because it will serve to help stimulate the local economy and create between 550 to 600 jobs.
“It’s important for us to put something forward from an economic stimulus perspective,” Guthrie said. “Infrastructure is something we do require in the province and it does serve the public. If we can build something that’s helpful to the province that’s at the same time putting people back to work.”
Guthrie added that there remains a demand for increased schooling in Cochrane, explaining that the expansion of Bow Valley High School in Cochrane is the number one request from Rocky View Schools.
Guthrie said he hopes the school will soon be a possibility he said because there is a need for more schools in Cochrane and there will be a need to create jobs when COVID-19 public health measures are lifted.
The Alberta government is working to accelerate any shovel ready projects in the province to help stimulate the local economies, he said.
“We were in a crunch before COVID, it’s certainly not going to get any easier after COVID,” Guthrie said. “If we see a worldwide downturn in economic growth— It’s going to put more fiscal pressures on provinces and countries around the world.”
